We are the world. We are the people. We are NATO. And we are coming to get you – wherever you are, whether you want us to or not.

by Pepe Escobar

[This article posted on 7/12/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://seniora.org/politik-wirtschaft/pepe-escobar-wir-sind-die-nato-und-wir-kommen-um-dich-zu-holen.]

The outgoing epileptic Norwegian log who passes himself off as NATO Secretary General has made quite an entrance, writes Pepe Escobar.

Call it the latest pop iteration of the “rules-based international order” that was duly baptized at NATO's 75th birthday in Washington.
Well, the global majority had already been warned – but in techno-feudalism, brains tend to be processed into mush.
So a gentle reminder is in order. This was already stated in the first paragraph of the Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation of January 9, 2023:
“We will continue to mobilize the full range of political, economic and military instruments at our disposal (italics added by me, PE) to pursue our shared goals for the benefit of our one billion citizens.”

Correction: hardly a million, belonging to the 0.1% plutocracy. Certainly not a billion.
Let's move on to the NATO 2024 Summit Declaration, which was obviously excellently edited by the Americans, with the other 31 different vassal members duly agreeing.

So here is NATO's most important “strategic” triad for 2024:
Additional tens of billions of dollars in “aid” for the emerging rump Ukraine; the overwhelming majority of these funds will flow into the industrial-military money laundering complex.
The compulsory imposition of additional military spending on all members.
Massive exaggeration of the “Chinese threat”.

As for the title song of the NATO 75 show, there are actually two. Apart from “China Threat” (end credits), the other one (opening credits) is “Free Ukraine”. The lyrics go something like this: It looks like we're fighting a war against Russia in Ukraine, but don't be fooled: NATO is not participating in this war.

Well, they are even setting up a NATO office in Kiev, but that is only to coordinate the production of a Netflix war series.

These malignant authoritarians

The outgoing epileptic Norwegian log who passes himself off as NATO Secretary General has achieved a remarkable feat before the arrival of his Dutch Gouda successor. Highlights include his scathing denunciation of the “growing alliance between Russia and its authoritarian friends in Asia”, i.e. the “authoritarian leaders in Iran, North Korea and China”. These malign entities “all want NATO to fail”. So there is much to do “with our friends in the Indo-Pacific”.

“Indo-Pacific” is a crude invention of a ‘rules-based international order’. No one in all of Asia, no matter where, has ever used it; everyone speaks of Asia-Pacific.

The joint statement directly accuses China of fueling Russian “aggression” in Ukraine: Beijing is described as a “key enabler” of the Kremlin's “war effort”. NATO's scriptwriters even directly threaten China: China “cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without negatively impacting its interests and reputation”.
To counter such malevolence, NATO will expand its “partnerships” with “Indo-Pacific” states.
Even before the summit declaration, the Global Times lost its composure with this nonsense: “Under the hype of the US and NATO, it seems that China has become the ‘key’ to Europe's survival and controls the fate of the Russia-Ukraine conflict like a ‘decisive power’.”

The tasteless rhetorical feast in Washington is definitely not enough for Beijing: the hegemon only wants to “penetrate deeper into Asia and try to create an ‘Asian-Pacific NATO’ to realize the US's ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’.”

Southeast Asia is largely united on the diplomatic front: with the exception of the misguided Filipinos who have been bought and paid for, no one wants to see the kind of serious turmoil in the Asia-Pacific region that NATO has caused in Europe.
Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a retired PLA officer, rejected the Indo-Pacific nonsense even before the summit: “We had an excellent exchange on this at the Astana Forum in Kazakhstan at the end of last year.

Whatever happens, Exceptionalism will continue to run at full speed. NATO and Japan have agreed to set up a 24/7 line for “highly classified security information”. So expect the mild-mannered Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to strengthen Japan's “central role” in building an Asian NATO.

Anyone with half a brain from Urumqi to Bangalore knows that the Exceptionalists' motto throughout Asia is: “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” The absolute majority of ASEAN countries and hopefully India will not fall for it.
It is clear that the NATO circus at the 75th summit is completely unaware and insensitive to what happened at the recent SCO summit in Astana. Especially when it comes to the SCO, which is now acting as a central hub in the creation of a new collective security arrangement that encompasses Eurasia.
As for Ukraine, Medvedev Unplugged once again inimitably set out the Russian position:

“The statement of the Washington summit of July 10 speaks of Ukraine's 'irreversible path' to NATO. For Russia, two possibilities are acceptable for how this path ends: either Ukraine disappears or NATO. Or even better, both.”

At the same time, China is conducting military exercises in Belarus, just a few days after Minsk officially became a member of the SCO. Translation: Forget about the “expansion” of NATO into Asia when Beijing is already making it clear that it is very present in NATO's alleged “backyard”.

A declaration of war against Eurasia

Michael Hudson has once again reminded all those with any sense that the ongoing NATO war show has nothing to do with peaceful internationalism. Rather, it is about “a unipolar US military alliance that leads to military aggression and economic sanctions to isolate Russia and China. Or rather, to isolate European and other allies from their former trade and investment with Russia and China, and to make those allies even more dependent on the United States.”
The NATO declaration of 2024 is in reality a renewed declaration of war, also a hybrid one, against Eurasia – and also against Afro-Eurasia (yes, there are promises of “partnerships” advancing everywhere from Africa to the Middle East).
Eurasian integration is about geo-economic integration – including, and this is crucial, transport corridors linking, among other things, Northern Europe with Western Asia.

For the hegemon, this is the ultimate nightmare: Eurasian integration, which would drive Western Europe away from the US and prevent the perennial wet dream of colonizing Russia.
So it's Plan A, and with absolute ruthlessness: Washington is bombing – literally – Russian-German integration (Nord Stream 1 and 2 and more) and turning the vassal state of frightened, confused Europeans into a potentially very dangerous place, right next to a raging hot war.
Therefore, we should once again take a look at the first paragraph of the joint communiqué of the EU and NATO from January 2023. This is what we are facing today, which is reflected in the title of my latest book Eurasia vs. NATOstan: NATO is – theoretically – fully mobilized militarily, politically and economically to fight against all forces of the global majority that could destabilize imperial hegemony.

Source: https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/07/11/we-are-nato-and-were-comin-to-get-ya/

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Lavrov presents the world with a proposal for a fairer world order | By Thomas Röper
[This article posted on 7/17/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://apolut.net/lawrow-unterbreitet-der-welt-einen-vorschlag-fuer-eine-gerechtere-weltordnung-von-thomas-roeper/.]

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov gave an important speech at the UN Security Council that received a great deal of attention worldwide – except in Western media. In it, he specifically outlined what a new, just and multilateral world order could look like, one that is no longer dominated by the West.

Russia currently holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, which Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov used for a keynote speech in the Council that was followed very closely worldwide, but largely ignored by Western media. If you search for the keyword “Lavrov” on Spiegel.de at the present time, a few hours after the speech, you will not find any article about today's meeting of the UN Security Council and Lavrov's speech.

It is not surprising that the Western media ignored the speech, because de facto Lavrov not only criticized the West, but also explained to the world what a just world order based on the equality of states could look like, which could replace the Western-controlled world order in which the United States wanted to dictate to all states in the world how they should live. Since the West is losing ground in the Global South anyway, because the majority of the world's states have a very different view of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza than the West, Lavrov's speech has met with great interest, especially outside the West.

But the Western media are keeping the current geopolitical processes from their audience because the Western public should not learn how isolated the West already is internationally. Instead, the Western media are perpetuating the myth that the West is still the center of the world and that the whole world wants to be like the West. But those days are long gone.
Since Lavrov's speech <1> was extremely interesting for those interested in politics, I have translated it in full.
Beginning of translation:

I would like to extend a warm welcome to the distinguished dignitaries present in the Security Council chamber. Your participation in today's meeting demonstrates the importance of the topic we are discussing. Egypt, Ethiopia, Chile, India, Indonesia, Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Pursuant to Rule 39 of the Council's provisional legal procedures, I invite His Excellency Mr. Lambrinidis, Head of the EU Delegation to the United Nations, to attend this meeting.

The Security Council will now begin to discuss agenda item 2. I would like to draw the attention of the Council members to document S/2024/537, a letter dated July 9, 2024, from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, containing a concept note on the item under discussion.

Dear Sir or Madam, Your Excellency,

Today, the foundations of the international legal order – strategic stability and the UN-centered system of world politics – are being put to the test. It will be impossible to resolve the mounting conflicts unless we understand their causes and restore confidence in our ability to pool our forces for the common good and justice for all.

Let us be frank: not all the states represented in this hall recognize the most important principle of the UN Charter: the sovereign equality of all states. The United States, through its presidents, has long proclaimed its own exceptionalism. This also applies to Washington's attitude towards its allies, from whom it demands unconditional obedience, even if this is at the expense of their national interests.

Rule, America! That is the essence of the infamous “rule-based order”, a direct threat to multilateralism and international peace.

The most important elements of international law – the UN Charter and the decisions of our Council – are being interpreted in a perverse and selective way by the “collective West”, depending on the instructions coming from the White House. And many Security Council resolutions are being completely ignored.

These include Resolution 2202, which approved the Minsk Agreement on Ukraine, and Resolution 1031, which approved the Dayton Agreement on peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, based on the principle of equality between the three constituent peoples and two entities.

We could talk endlessly about the sabotage of the resolutions on the Middle East – suffice it to say that Anthony Blinken, in an interview with CNN in February 2021, when asked what he thought of the previous US administration's decision to recognize the Syrian Golan Heights as belonging to Israel, said: “If anyone doesn't remember, I'll refresh your memory. In response to this question, the US Secretary of State said: “Apart from the question of legality, the Golan is very important for Israel's security from a practical point of view.”

And this despite the fact that UN Security Council Resolution 497 of 1981, which you and I are very familiar with and which no one has repealed, qualifies Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights as illegal. But according to these same “rules”, we should, to quote Anthony Blinken, “leave the question of legality” aside.

And of course everyone remembers the statement by the US Permanent Representative to the UN that Resolution 2728, adopted on March 25 this year, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, is “not legally binding”. In other words, the American “rules” are more important than Article 25 of the UN Charter.

As early as the last century, George Orwell foresaw the essence of the “rule-based order” in his novel “Animal Farm”: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. If you follow the will of the hegemon, everything is allowed. But anyone who dares to defend their national interests is declared a pariah and sanctioned.

Washington's hegemonic policy has not changed for decades. Without exception, all transatlantic security concepts were based on securing US dominance, including the subjugation of Europe and the “containment” of Russia. The most important role was assigned to NATO, which ultimately “subjugated” the EU, which seemed to have been created for Europeans. The structures of the OSCE were shamelessly privatized in blatant violation of the Helsinki Final Act.

The reckless expansion of NATO, in defiance of repeated warnings from Moscow, has also provoked the Ukraine crisis over many years, starting with the coup organized by Washington in February 2014 to gain complete control over Ukraine and to prepare an attack against Russia with the help of the neo-Nazi regime brought to power. When Poroshenko and then Zelensky waged war against their own citizens in Donbass, destroyed Russian education, Russian culture, Russian media and the Russian language as a whole by law, and banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, West and nobody demanded that the subordinates in Kiev “keep their dignity” and not violate international agreements on the rights of national minorities or even the Constitution of Ukraine itself, which prescribes respect for these rights. The military operation was launched to eliminate precisely these threats to Russia's security and to protect people who feel part of Russian culture and live in areas that their ancestors have inhabited for centuries, from legal and even physical extermination.

It is significant that even now, when numerous initiatives are being proposed for a solution in Ukraine, few people think about the violation of human rights and the rights of national minorities by Kiev. Only recently, a corresponding demand was formulated in the EU documents on the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine, which is mainly due to the principled and persistent attitude of Hungary. However, the actual possibilities and the will of Brussels to influence the Kiev regime are questionable.

We call on all those who are genuinely interested in overcoming the crisis in Ukraine to take into account the central issue of the rights of all national minorities without exception in their proposals. Silence on this issue devalues peace initiatives and effectively supports Zelensky's racist policies. It is significant that Zelensky said in 2014, ten years ago: “If people in eastern Ukraine and Crimea want to speak Russian, let them be, give them the right to speak Russian by law. Language will never divide our homeland.”

Since then, Washington has successfully re-educated him, and in 2021, in one of his interviews, Zelensky called on those who feel connected to Russian culture to go to Russia for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

I appeal to the rulers of the Ukrainian regime: please comply with Article 1.3 of the UN Charter, which guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of all people “without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”.

Dear colleagues,

NATO is no longer satisfied with the war it has unleashed against Russia through the illegitimate government in Kiev, nor is it satisfied with the entire OSCE area. Having almost destroyed the fundamental agreements on arms control, the US is now further intensifying the confrontation. At the recent summit in Washington, the heads of state and government of the alliance countries reaffirmed their claim to a leading role not only in the transatlantic but also in the Asia-Pacific region. It is stated that NATO is still guided by the task of defending the territory of its members, but that for this purpose the Alliance's dominance must be extended to the entire Eurasian continent and the adjacent sea areas.

NATO's military infrastructure is shifting to the Pacific region with the obvious aim of undermining the ASEAN-centered architecture that has been built for decades on the principles of equality, mutual interest and consensus. To replace these inclusive mechanisms that have been built around ASEAN, the US and its allies are forging closed confrontational blocs like AUKUS and other various kinds of “fours” and “threes” subordinate to them. Recently, Deputy Pentagon Chief Hicks said that the US and its allies should “prepare for protracted wars, and not just in Europe.”

In order to “contain” Russia, China and other countries whose independent policies they perceive as a challenge to hegemony, the West is breaking up the system of globalization that it originally created according to its own ideas through its aggressive actions. Washington has done everything in its power to destroy the foundations of mutually beneficial energy cooperation between Russia and Germany and Europe as a whole – including, literally, by organizing terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

Berlin remained silent at the time. Today we are witnessing a further humiliation of Germany, whose government has unconditionally obeyed the decision of the United States to station ground-based medium-range missiles on German territory. German Chancellor Scholz simply said: “The United States has decided to station precision-guided weapons in Germany, and that is a good decision.” The United States has decided.

And with all this, John Kirby, the media coordinator in Washington, explains on behalf of the US president: “We are not seeking a third world war. It would have terrible consequences for the European continent.”

As the saying goes, a Freudian slip: Washington is convinced that it is not the United States that will suffer from a new global war, but its European allies. If the Biden administration's strategy is based on this analysis, it is an extremely dangerous misjudgment. And of course, the Europeans must realize what a suicidal role they are being given.

The Americans, who are “holding a gun to the head” of the entire collective West, are expanding the trade and economic war with the undesirables by unleashing an unprecedented campaign of unilateral coercive measures that will primarily rebound on Europe and lead to further fragmentation of the world economy. The countries of the global South in Asia, Africa and Latin America are suffering from the neocolonial practices of Western countries. The illegal sanctions, the numerous protectionist measures and restrictions on access to technology are in direct contradiction to genuine multilateralism and are significantly hindering the achievement of the UN development agenda.

Where are all the attributes of the free market that the US and its allies have been teaching everyone for so many years? Market economy, fair competition, inviolability of property, presumption of innocence, free movement of persons, goods, capital and services – all this has been thrown overboard. Geopolitics has buried the market laws that were once sacred to the West. Recently, officials from the US and the EU have publicly called on China to reduce “overproduction” in high-tech industries, as the West has also begun to lose its long-standing advantages in these sectors. Instead of market principles, it is precisely these “rules” that are now being applied.

Dear colleagues,

the actions of the United States and its allies are hindering international cooperation and the construction of a more just world, holding entire countries and regions hostage, preventing peoples from exercising the sovereign rights enshrined in the UN Charter and distracts from the urgent need to work together to resolve conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and other regions, to reduce global inequality, to eliminate the threats of terrorism and drug-related crime, hunger and disease.

I am convinced that this situation can be remedied – provided, of course, that the will is there. To stop the negative scenario from developing, we would like to put forward a number of steps for discussion that are aimed at restoring trust and stabilizing the international situation.

First, the causes of the crisis in Europe must be eliminated once and for all. The conditions for creating a lasting peace in Ukraine have been set out by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin; I will not repeat them.

A political and diplomatic solution must be accompanied by concrete steps to eliminate the threat to the Russian Federation from the Western, transatlantic area. In agreeing mutual guarantees and agreements, we must take into account the new geostrategic realities on the Eurasian continent, where a continent-wide architecture of truly equal and indivisible security is taking shape. Europe risks falling behind this objective historical process. We are ready to seek a balance of interests.

Secondly, the restoration of regional and global balance of power must be accompanied by active efforts to eliminate injustices in the world economy. In a multipolar world, there can be no monopolists in the areas of monetary and financial regulation, trade or technology. This view is shared by the vast majority of the world community. Of particular importance is the early reform of the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO, whose activities must reflect the real weight of the non-Western centers of growth and development.

Thirdly, serious qualitative changes must also take place in other institutions of the world order if they are to work for the benefit of all. This applies above all to our organization, the UN, which, despite everything, is still the embodiment of multilateralism, with its unique, universal legitimacy and the generally recognized breadth of its competencies.

An important step towards restoring the effectiveness of the UN would be for all its members to reaffirm their commitment to the principles of the UN Charter, not selectively, but in their entirety and in their interaction. We can think together about what such a reaffirmation might look like.

The Group of Friends for the Defense of the UN Charter, which was created at the initiative of Venezuela, is working hard on this. We invite all countries that still believe in the rule of international law to join their work.

A key element of the UN reform must be a change in the composition of the Security Council, although this alone will not be sufficient unless there is a fundamental agreement on the modus operandi of the permanent members. However, this consideration does not alter the need to eliminate the geographical and geopolitical distortions in the Security Council, in which the collective West is clearly over-represented today. A broad consensus on the specific parameters of the reform to strengthen the representation of Asia, Africa and Latin America is a long overdue step.

A change in the personnel policy of the Secretariat is also necessary to eliminate the overrepresentation of Western nationals and subjects in the administrative structures of the UN. The Secretary-General and his staff are, without exception, bound by the principles of impartiality and neutrality as laid down in Article 100 of the UN Charter, a fact that we never tire of reminding people.

Fourthly, in addition to the UN, other multilateral organizations must also contribute to strengthening multipolarity in international life. These include the G20, which brings together both the countries of the global majority and the Western states. The G20's mandate is strictly limited to economic and development issues, so it is important that the substantive dialogue on this platform is free from opportunistic attempts to introduce geopolitical issues. Otherwise, we will destroy this useful platform.

The BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are playing an increasingly important role in building a just multilateral order based on the principles of the UN Charter. They bring together countries representing different regions and civilizations, working together on the basis of equality, mutual respect, consensus and mutually acceptable compromises, which is the “gold standard” of multilateral cooperation involving major powers.

Regional groupings such as the CIS, the CSTO, the Eurasian Economic Union, ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the League of Arab States, the African Union and CELAC are of practical importance for the construction of multipolarity. We see it as an important task to establish diverse links between them, also involving the potential of the UN. The Russian presidency of the Security Council will devote one of its next meetings to the cooperation between the UN and the Eurasian regional organizations.

Dear colleagues,

in his speech at the BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg on July 9 this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “Creating a world order that reflects the real balance of power is a complex and, in many respects, even painful process.”

We believe that discussions on this topic should be based on a sober analysis of the facts as a whole, without sliding into fruitless polemics. First and foremost, professional diplomacy, the culture of dialogue, the ability to listen and the channels of crisis communication must be preserved. The lives of millions of people depend on whether politicians and diplomats are able to formulate a common vision of the future. Whether our world will be diverse and just depends solely on the member states of the UN. The charter of our organization is the linchpin. If all of them, without exception, adhere to the spirit and letter of the charter, the UN can overcome the current differences and find common ground on most issues.

The “end of history” has not come. Let us work together to begin the history of true multilateralism, which reflects the richness of the cultural and civilizational diversity of the peoples of the world. We invite you to this discussion, which must, of course, be entirely honest.